The setting was an elegant Victorian townhouse in Chelsea.
The guests included six Tory donors and senior members of Best for Britain, a pressure group openly campaigning for a second referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union.
The host was George Soros, the international financier who ‘broke the Bank of England’ when Britain exited the European Exchange Rate Mechanism on Black Wednesday, back in 1992.
The topic under discussion was Brexit…and how it might be overturned.
The host was George Soros, the international financier who ‘broke the Bank of England’
As Lord Malloch-Brown, the former Labour minister who is now chairman of Best for Britain, told the guests: ‘The time is now.’ The hope appeared to be that the rich Conservative donors present that evening would provide the group with much-needed financial support for its anti-Brexit campaign.
But – unfortunately for those bent on frustrating the 2016 referendum result – it seemed no one opened their cheque books.
Mr Soros’ Chelsea home comprises two grand Victorian properties knocked into one.
At the meeting – on a Monday night in late January – were Lord Malloch-Brown, the former City minister; and another board member of Best for Britain, the former Olympic rower and former Goldman Sachs banker Stephen Peel. They were joined by Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of advertising firm WPP – a key opponent of Brexit.
The identities of the six Conservative donors have not been revealed. They were reportedly told that the goal was to launch a campaign to overturn the vote to leave the EU.
The plan was to ‘raise public support for Remain to a clear and growing national majority by June/July 2018 and channelling that pressure into MPs’ mailbags and surgeries’.
The Daily Telegraph yesterday revealed the strategy document, leaked from a meeting of the Best for Britain group. According to this, the campaign – which will begin by the end of this month – must ‘wake the country up and assert that Brexit is not a done deal. That it’s not too late to stop Brexit’.
The document concluded that the movement ‘must then win the meaningful vote that Mrs [Theresa] May has promised on her Brexit deal in October’, adding that if she were to lose, ‘it is likely to trigger a new referendum, or election’. ‘We must prevail decisively so reassuring Europe that our return will be permanent,’ the document reportedly stated.
Some of the attendees at Mr Soros’ meeting already had links to Best for Britain, which was originally set up by pro-EU lawyer Gina Miller last year, though she has since left.
Some of the attendees at Mr Soros’ meeting already had links to Best for Britain, which was originally set up by pro-EU lawyer Gina Miller last year, though she has since left
Mr Peel had already given £25,000 to the group. Lord Malloch-Brown, who recently became chairman of the body, told the meeting that Parliament had won a ‘meaningful vote’ on the Brexit deal – which Remainers believed could be a chance to strike a significant blow against it.
According to the Telegraph, he laid out how that vote would be the campaign’s target. He said he wanted the separate Remain groups to orchestrate their campaigns.
And a marketing blitz would target young people and assert that the course of Brexit could be changed. He revealed that they already had a range of ‘guerilla marketing tactics’ in preparation to seize attention.
Support from business and unions would be harnessed, and the European Movement – another pro-EU group – would help create pro-Remain pressure.
Lord Malloch-Brown said they would create a ‘national field presence, concentrated on seats where MPs need to be brought into the Remain column’. He allegedly told the guests he believed that this, combined with an inevitably worsening economy, would turn the public against Brexit eventually.
This would mean the public would pile pressure on MPs to vote against the Government’s final EU deal.
If Mrs May lost the vote, he said she would have to offer a new referendum or a fresh election to renew her mandate. This election, so the plan went, could lead to a pro-Brussels majority which could decide to keep Britain in the EU.
However, the dinner apparently did not achieve the hoped-for result.
Mr Soros and Mr Peel had already donated to Best for Britain – but the Tory donors were less keen. They were apparently not happy that the plot seemed to hinge on bringing down a Conservative prime minister. And none of them pledged money for the campaign, despite Lord Malloch-Brown’s best efforts.